Bomba Dauda
In their response to a recent press statement issued by SOKAMUDA, entitled, “advise on recurring communal disturbances in Southern Kaduna particularly the recent ones in Kajuru, Zango-kataf and Kauru Local Government Areas of Kaduna State,” the Ninkyob Progressive Youths reproof SOKAMUDA.
Saying, The history that was cooked up by SOKAMUDA about the Nikyob (Kaninkon) Chiefdom remains of utmost concern to us, at least for now. It is expedient that we set the record straight. We cannot keep mute while amateur historians rewrite, falsify and misinterpret our concrete/established history.
In her conjecture, SOKAMUDA is selling a fiction that she hopes will become a reality. For instance, section C, ii, SOKAMUDA claims that the Nikyob (Kaninkon) people settled in their present location in 1915 during the reign of one Abdullahi Maje Jos.
This is so unfortunate that a religious association will print such a white lie. Let it be known that this is a wishful thinking even though with a covert agenda to shortchange the destiny of our people in their God-given inheritance and to tactically push for the creation of an Emirate within our land.
We have long seen this and the hand writing on the wall is legible enough to us as a people. We therefore resist now and will resist anyone in the future nursing the idea of balkanising our ancestral land. We want the government of Kaduna State to watch out and avoid being roped into this irrational and criminal calculation.
The Nikyob (Kaninkon) people have long been marked as “unknown” by colonial historiographers. It is instructive here for the reader to note that these European writers were always eager to connect African societies with some untrue ancestry or migratory patterns, but could not traced the Nikyob people beyond their immediate environment. Therefore, their only option was to tag them as “unknown”.
Today, with this written history and much from the wealth of oral tradition, some scavengers want to dispossess us of our inheritance by calling us settlers.
We want the world to know that ever since the discovery of nickel in large amount and one of the highest quality globally, many of these folk tales began flying around with such claims to a discovery in “Dangoma” instead of Kaninkon Chiefdom. Today, we are making it categorically clear that Dangoma is only a settlement within Kaninkon Chiefdom and SOKAMUDA cannot change this truth.
A search through the list of tribes and settlements in the colonial records of the then Jama’a Federation does not give any researcher a name for either a tribe or settlement like Dangoma. The same goes with the official tax records. We challenge both Dangoma and SOKAMUDA to disprove this with any primary source from the public space.
This is very important because the British colonial government relied on taxation as one of its economic life wires and could not have loved Dangoma so much to have exonerated from paying colonial taxes. SOKAMUDA and Dangoma should provide colonial records of population with that of a tribe or settlement called Dangoma and maps of this area that speak otherwise.
On the unfortunate attack of our community referred to in section 2:xiv, we are not also surprised but disheartened to know the stance of SOKAMUDA. We condemn in totality the hypothesis formulated by them to change the narrative by saying it was a reprisal by Fulani people. We equally appreciate SOKAMUDA for confirming our report and giving the world a clue to the identity of the perpetrators of this heinous crime which both the government and media have repeatedly protected by labelling as “unknown gunmen”.
We demand that the Kaduna State government under the leadership of HE Mallam Nasir El-Rufai whom the association kept praising in her release, to hold her responsible for producing these criminals and let the rule of law takes its full course.
For the sake of God and humanity, the attack on Goska (a peaceful community) was a culmination of series of attacks on the entire district which extends to areas like Passakori, Mile one, Tudun Wada and adjoining settlements of Gidan Waya.
No matter the name given them, it was within the context of an agenda against the entire Middle-Belt region aimed at reducing and destroying Christian population and to also dispossess them of their lands. This is still going on in a systematic way and we are ashamed that even the Federal Government recently is still describing this crime against humanity as “reprisal”.
Overall, the Nikyob people have lived in their ancestral land and will never accept to be called strangers. We are part of the entire Nok Civilisation which spanned between c. 1500 BC – c.500 AD. A civilisation that was not a Hausa-Fulani innovation and which also engulfed the whole of Southern Kaduna. Careful archaeological and historoval studies have concluded that the present inhabitants of the entire area are direct descendants of those who perpetuated this great civilization. Therefore, the frequently fabricated historical lie that says our ancestral land was an uninhabited place (virgin land) when the Hausa-Fulani migrated into it cannot be corroborated with the hard facts of history.
We are peace-loving and accommodating but not stupid to relinquish our inheritance to anybody for whatsoever reason. No historical fiction can unsettle us.
Importantly, let the world know it clearly from our discussion that Dangoma is a setllement in Nikyob Land! The inhabitants were originally freed slaves and labour force for the Jama’a emirate. They are part of the group as Rumada and Dalle who are neither Hausa nor Fulani but got assimilated into Hausa or Fulani ethnic group.
In this case, the people of Dangoma were assimilated into the Fulani group. They were originally settled in Nikyob Land by the British (within the second decade of the 20th century) who chose our people because of their peaceful disposition to serve as their host. The name Dangoma literally translates to “ten persons”. It has neither Fulani nor Hausa meaning different from this. The first people to be settled here were ten in number, that was how they were scattered in other places like Dalle, Rumada, Ungwar Matsirga etc.
With this population, if our fathers had wanted war, they would not have been a match for women fighters.
Similarly, generations have passed and we have remained committed to this relationship even though with different identities. We have treated them as brothers. With the knowledge of hindsight, we equally recognise that like the South African white population, they cannot trace their existence beyond our land except for recent settlers among them. But we are not going to be intimidated in our land with some hollow press statements nor become second class citizens in our land because of peace.
Ninkyob Progressive Youths are urging SOKAMUDA to desist from formenting crisis in their land and demand her to apologise forthwith for not only desecrating our history but also falsifying it.
They went further to say, “We pray the Kaduna State government to hold SOKAMUDA responsible for bringing the killers of our people in Goska and the subsequent ones at Bakin-Kogi and environs. This is hinged on the revelation that she knows them-Fulani and seems to be playing the role of mouthpiece.”
Good…